Personal Note: My Recent Absence

Where do I start?  Thursday, three weeks ago, my mother fell.  For those that don’t know, my mother is eighty-six and less than two months from her next birthday.  You can read a bit about her here.    A good number of posts about my mother have to do with hospitalizations.  This is no different.

How dumb is this.  She was cleaning the oven, put one of those racks inside the oven on the floor, walked away, walked back, and slipped on it.  She fell in her right side.  Luckily she did not hit her head, but still she broke her right kneecap ( fractured patella), and got a deep bruise on her right shoulder, but no tear or break.  She spent a week in the hospital, mostly for rehab.  Luckily also they had room for her at the hospital rehab or she would have had to enter a nursing home.  And wants to do that these days?

She was discharged on the following Thursday with a brace on her leg.  She is allowed to put weight on the leg but not allowed to bend it.  She has trouble lifting her right shoulder.  For a week she had a visiting nurse come to the house and a physical and occupational therapists coming to the house.  That was going well.

Then I had to take my mother to the ER again this Thursday night.  Why is everything happening on Thursdays?  This time it was her stomach.  Everything was repeating and she was belching non-stop and couldn't hold down anything.  After this was going on all day I took her to the ER.  They did an endoscopy and no ulcer or cancer but she does have gastritis, which I guess is the best possible outcome.  She was a little better today but still not good.  Between her knee, her shoulder, her stomach, and a headache on top of it, she is one uncomfortable woman.  She’s also understandably crabby.  It’s a cross I’ve had to carry…lol.

She's always had some gastritis but it may have been inflamed from some of the meds she was taking for the pain.  It may have been my fault.  When she was discharged last week, they had added a stomach acid med (Omeprazole?) but for some reason Medicare didn't cover it.  I didn't realize you could get it off the shelf.  By the time I figured this out almost a week had gone by and perhaps the Tramadol she was taking for pain inflamed her gastritis.  They are giving her a couple of other meds (Protonix and Maalox I think) while she's in the hospital.  Hopefully it will be fixed soon. 

The meds for gastritis have helped but not solved it.  The doctors thought there may be more going on.  Something called Gastroparesis.  It involves the transfer of food from the stomach to the small intestine.  It's when the small intestine doesn't open.  It could be caused as a side effect from some of the meds she already takes.  It didn't turn out to be that. 

By the way, I've heard some big burly guys belch, but they have nothing on my mother.  Her belches are probably the most unfeminine belches I've ever heard...lol.

She finally returned home from the hospital this afternoon, again on a Thursday.  How coincidental.  She was supposed to have been discharged each of the last couple of days but every time she would eat her gastric symptoms would return.  As far as the doctors can tell, it's only gastritis, no ulcer, no cancer.  They wanted her to hold down more food before being discharged.  She was reaching a point where she didn’t think she would survive this or ever return home.  But today was a complete turn.  She was lively and moved around briskly, or as brisk as she could with a brace on her right knee.  She was happy to be home.  She was worried about holding down food but so far so good.

Say a prayer for her continued recovery.

Matthew Monday: Texting with His Father

This past week we had a bit of a scare.  Thursday afternoon my wife comes up to where I’m working—I’m still teleworking from home—and asked if there was something wrong with her face.  She said she couldn’t close her left eye and her the left side of her lip was numb.  As I looked carefully her face did look ever so slightly twisted, and her right eye kept blinking.  Yes, there was something wrong.  I dropped everything, got her and Matthew in the car, dropped off Matthew at her mother’s, and drove to the Emergency Room. 

Well, with the coronavirus they just take one into the bowels of the hospital emergency section and any family is left to wait.  Let me just say that the worst possibility of the twisted face is a stroke.  That was my fear while I urgently got to the hospital.  My wife and I each had our phones and for the most part we were in communication through texting.  Through the course of the evening, after examinations, tests, CAT scans, it seemed the likely issue was not a stroke but Bell ’s palsy.  She was admitted because the CAT scans were not conclusive and had to do an MRI.  It was a full twenty-five or twenty-six hours later before she finally had a room available for her, and they did the MRI and thank God it was not a stroke. 

All this time Matthew was at his grandmother’s, and she let him use her phone, and he had become a texting demon.  I didn’t realize he could communicate and write like that.  This is when I tangibly could see that my son, six weeks away from his eleventh birthday, was not a kid any more.  He communicated like—well, not an adult, but certainly not a child.

So Saturday evening I was waiting outside the hospital waiting for my wife to get discharged—it was past visiting hours, and they didn’t allow me in—and my son decided to text me.  I’m going to reproduce the back and forth texts here.

Matthew: Dad what about church tomorrow

Me: St. Rita.

Matthew: Well what time

Me: What time do you want to go?

Matthew: 12:30  Is that fine

Me: Why so late?

Matthew: Cause idk what time I am wake up

Me: I’ll wake you up

Matthew: Mom said I am staying at grandmas for one last night

Now this through me for a loop.  I expected him home after two nights away.

Me: You are?  How come?

Matthew: We cause me and grandma think she need to be in peace so we are staying for one last night  And she agrees

OK, so now I’m getting a little cantankerous.  I know he wants to stay with his grandmother.  It’s fun for him to be away.  Plus I’m not going to let a child dictate when and where he sleeps over.

Me: Maybe we need your help to take care of mommy tonight

Matthew: What does she need

I punctuate my texts.  Obviously he’s picked up common place habits.  I can’t stand all those text abbreviations, and apparently he’s learned them.

Me: Someone has to put pillows under her head.  And take her temperature.

Well, yes, I am groping for a reason.

Matthew: Well idk

Me: OK.  I’ll ask mommy when she comes out.

Matthew: And she said she didn’t sleep much last night 

Pause

Matthew: Mom said I can stay  I just asked her again

Me: I have to ask her.  Not you.  *tongue-in-cheek emoji*

Matthew: You use emojis

Me: Not really.  Just this time

Matthew: Oh 

Pause

Matthew: And why do you have to ask her

Me: Because

Matthew: It cause you don’t believe me

Me: I believe you.  But I may have to try to change her mind

Matthew: Why

Me: Because

Matthew: Meany

Me: Cry baby

Matthew: You’re the cry baby cause your not letting me stay  An your making a big fuss about it

Me: I have to take to mommy about it

Matthew: Meany

Me: *smiling emoji*

Matthew: *rolling eyes emoji*  *clown emoji* *devil emoji*

Me: *laughing with tears emoji*

Matthew: Clown

Me: Hey now watch it.  Enough

Matthew: Fine *sad face emoji*

Pause

Matthew: I am go hang out with grandma  bye

Me: See you later tonight

Matthew: No

Me: *kiss with a heart emoji*

Matthew: Maybe a FaceTime

Me: I don’t FaceTime

Matthew: Oh  OK

OK, we spoke and I let him stay at his grandmother’s that last night.  I was mostly pulling his leg.  But he’s getting too clever and spunky for his own good.  

Personal Note: Matthew’s Pneumonia

Wednesday (August 3^rd) evening I noticed Matthew felt hot to the touch.  I took his temperature and while I now don’t remember what it was, it was elevated..  We held him back from camp on Thursday, and he still had fever, and so Friday my wife took him to the pediatrician.  He had fever there too but no other symptoms, no strep throat, and so they assumed it was just a viral infection.  They don’t give you anything for that any more.  They don’t want people getting immune to antibiotics, so they have reduce the usage.  They sent Matthew home without any prescription, just told to alternate between children’s Tylenol and children’s Motrin to keep the fever down.

His fever was somewhat under control, but Saturday night it skyrocketed to 103.7 degrees and my wife wanted to take him to the Emergency Room.  I dissuaded her, arguing they’re not going to do anything there either.  I said that if it reached 104 degrees than we would go.

It came down and for most of Sunday it was reasonable, though above normal.  Then Sunday afternoon it spiked up to 104.3, and at that point we decided to go to the E-R.  At the hospital, Matthew again didn’t seem to have any other symptoms, and the doctor was about to release us when on intuition he decided to send Matthew for a chest x-ray.  Well, x-ray showed a good size pneumonia in his lower left lung, and so we got to the bottom of it.  He prescribed Matthew an antibiotic.

Matthew’s temperature was still going up and down, again spiking over 104 degrees, but coming down.  Today (Tuesday) he had a follow-up with the pediatrician, and she now only heard the pneumonia in the left lung, but said he developed it in his right lung as well.  So she then doubled up on the antibiotic and Matthew has to breathe with a nebulizer three times a day.  Today the fever has been close to normal all day.  I think we’re over the hump, but I’m still guarded.

Here’s a picture of Matthew with his kangaroo nebulizer.  LOL, they’ll do anything to make kids enjoy their medical treatments.

Your prayers for Matthew are certainly welcomed. 

Matthew Monday: Halloween Costume

It’s been a crazy week.  Last Saturday my mother fell at two in the morning going to the bathroom.  She lives alone and she didn’t call me until six.  Actually she claims she called me and no one picked up the phone and left a message.  But there was no message.  I rushed over.  I only live five minutes away.  Her fingers had been cut, and so I took her to the emergency room. 

Given she had passed out (she believes it was for twenty minutes) they took catscans of her head and so had to wait to ensure it wasn’t a stroke.  It wasn’t but since this passing out seems to happen regularly—every few months—they held her for a few days to monitor her heart and blood pressure.  Now my mother’s heart is actually in excellent shape for her age.  In the past year she’s had a stress test and an echocardiogram, all of which shows a remarkably strong heart.  Her latest cholesterol level is an astounding 163.  But what seems to be her problem is an unusually low heart rate.  It’s always been in the fifties, and while she was hooked up to the monitor at the hospital I saw it drop to 49.  Six years ago she was also diagnosed with NeurocardiogenicSyncope, which makes her faint when she bends over and rises really fast. 

So at the hospital the talk seemed to lead that she would need a pacemaker.  But ultimately they decided she didn’t need it and just gave her an additional medicine for Orthostatic hypotension.  But here’s the kicker.  After spending three days in the emergency room on an ER bed, she developed back spasms which prevented her from walking.  She couldn’t put her feet down on the ground.  She was ready to be released but there was no way for her to take care of herself by herself.  They wanted her to go to a rehab facility, which is nothing more than a nursing home.  I couldn’t argue against it, and neither could she, but she was furious.  They actually went through with making arrangements. 

When I tell you she was mad, that is an understatement.  A nursing home is her worst fear.  I couldn’t go into her room without her cursing me.  Other than the curses, she refused to speak to me.  I finally had to leave.  Actually it’s my sins coming back to haunt me.  At times when my mother in her advanced years would do something that risked her well being, I threatened to have her put in a nursing home.  Now I didn’t really mean it.  It was just a means to get her to be more cautious, and for the most part she understood that.  But at the hospital she claimed I finally got my wish to have her put away.  God certainly was getting back at me.

Luckily the painkillers the next day enabled her to walk with a walker, and given I promised to stay with her, they released her to her home.  So I’ve been there for a few days, and slowly her back has been getting better.  She’ll have a nurse coming over to check on her and a physical therapist.  Finally I can get back to work.  Anyway, without getting into more details, that’s the story.

Through it all Matthew had a fun Halloween.  He went in a Captain America costume.  He looked great.  Here are some pictures.